2pm: Phil and I arrive at Devil's Den State Park. 2:15pm: Philip gets the trainer tire on my spare wheel and readies my bike for the coming TT... 2:48pm: I roll around on the bike and test my legs on the park's switch-backs, they feel pretty good... 3:35pm: Philip checks my start time, it's 4:47:00pm... 4pm: 47-minutes until I depart; I put on my skinsuit and begin warming up in earnest... 4:45:36: that's what the digital clock reads outside the starting house, I've heard my name announced for call-up's. I roll into the starting house and am greeted to the sight of a few racers milling around confused. It has to be close to my departure time, I shout to the officials that my start is 4:47:00 and that my name is Matt Pfannenstiel (it still is on my license). They thumb through the list and say, "you missed your start time, roll when you're ready." It can't be, the clock outside the house said no later than 4:46:00 by the time I entered, and I enquired about my departure as soon as I entered starting house. "Go now," they say, and I sprint.
"No... no... NO. NO!!!" A broken record of that one word soundtrack plays in my head. I'm racing at 33mph to the base of the climb and mount its base climbing at 26. Within a minute I catch the racer in front of me; we're climbing at 17mph. Half-way up the climb we're holding 17, then I pop. 13 is a good as it gets during the real steep part. A climber from Dogfish racing catches me and passes. At this point I don't know how to pace myself, I don't know how many seconds I lost in my missed start, I never had a chance to set my computer. There's running and then there's running blind. Right now, I'm as blind as a bat. "Just finish," I tell myself, "just get it done."
At the top I nearly collapse.
Friday:
Turns out I'm 2-minutes and 15-seconds down on 1st GC. A Tulsa rider, Joe S., Dewey Dicky make up the top three in the general classification. I'm riding pack today and saving it for the sprint, it's all stage prizes from here on out. I'm okay with that, Mercy is going to protect Joe's GC spot and will bring back most of the breaks. Moves go from the gun, but nothing sticks this early on. I sit and I wait. A strong break heads up the road, six or seven riders, and quickly opens up a 30 second gap. I jump.
Each second is gobbled up by my sprinting legs, I sit only to take a sharp left and resume attack coming out of the turn, closing the gap to the lead group. My attack was strong, no one held my wheel, I arrived at the break alone. It was strong enough to elicit panic from the peloton though, which is hot in pursuit. In a few minutes they absorb us and it's back to pack riding.. and the crashes start.
No one wants to ride in the wind. Each moment is filled with jockeying for position, position on a wheel that is following wheel, a wheel that snakes across the road, following wheels. We don't ride constant, straight, or smoothly. In the peloton you're either passing, being passed, tapping the breaks, or jamming the pedals. At this moment I'm in the zone, unaware of reality, just flowing. My subconscious takes over, smoothing out my motions, removing nerves from the equation.
It starts with a shout, then the squealing of brake pads on carbon rims, that awful sound of hollow carbon cracking, and finally the surreal sight of bodies splaying across the pavement. Utter carnage in the blink of an eye. I remember the shocked look on the face of a rider as he and his red bike careen across the road towards me. I escaped on the right side; one of the last to neither be caught up or caught in the crash.
I would crash in 40 miles more, hand to my mouth taking a feed. It happened the same way; a shout, a squeal, and a crack as I went down. Immediately getting back to my feet I put my chain back on the small ring and struggled to get my shaking foot clipped in. "There's a big descent coming up, if you haul ass you can catch," a motorcycle escort said to me. I managed 26mph on the descent. Something was wrong, I felt like I had a parachute on my back. I got off at the bottom and checked to see if my wheels were knocked against the stays, they weren't. I checked my brakes, they were good. 16 miles-per-hour on the flats and I was dieing. Riders previously shelled began to catch, I couldn't hold their wheels. I told them I felt something was wrong with my bike, they said just to press on. Four or five groups dropped me.
20.. 15.. 10.. 5.. 3.. 1 mile to the second feed zone. I prayed that Philip hadn't left me and proceeded to the finish. I had been riding 20 miles uphill, into a headwind, and I was blowing up. How can this be? I thought to myself. How could that crash utterly derail me? I was riding strong in the pack, the gap I bridged felt good, and now? Why?
Philip saw me cresting the hill to the final feed barely keeping my bike up. "I just want to finish," I told him. There was blood everywhere. My wounds looked like something from World War II. Gravel mingled with enormous blood clots and blood covered most of my left arm. I didn't want to look at them, they were too horrible. "Finish strong," was what Philip said when he saw me off from the feed zone.
Andrew Coe and Mesa's Alex were the next to catch up to me. Andrew had been at the front all day for Mercy and popped a while back. I told him something had to be wrong with my bike. "Your back left brake is rubbing," he said matter of factly. It was. I reached back and pulled it loose. Immediately my speed went from a pained 18mph to comfortable 24. Mother f***er. I went 20 miles, uphill, into a headwind, braking. That was the hardest 20 miles of my life, I'll never quit a race after that.
Twenty-six miles later I kissed the pavement past the finish line. Handing my bike off to Philip I headed over to the medical tent, put my jersey between my teeth, grabbed a towel, and scrubbed the gravel out of my wounds.
Today I found out that I didn't make the time cut. Philip asked me how I felt about it. "Disappointed," I responded, "I wasn't about to quit." That's what this weekend did, it took quit out of my vocabulary. At this level shit is going to happen, it's not a matter of if, but when. The important thing is how you handle it; whether you cower in the corner and give up or compose yourself and look for other chances. There's always next year; not to mention, next week.
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